Museums as open and accessible public institutions is a concept conceived and developed in the West which then gradually became applied to the rest of the world. From the early days to the present, museums can be seen as a product of the Western world in terms of trends, circumstances, and interests. Western countries arguably remain at the forefront in leading the trends of museum display methods. A few paradigms, led by the West, can be broadly detected, from 'collecting and preserving' to 'housing and displaying' to 'loaning and sharing' to 'a more sensory experience of the past,' to mention a few. Efforts to apply a more sensory experience of the past can be observed in other parts of the world. This article focuses on how The National Museum of Korea, in 2021, applied various sensory methods in their special exhibition on Homo Sapiens: Evolution, Relationship & Future? The rationale for selecting this particular exhibition is that it effectively showcases how Western-derived and driven trends are proactively applied in South Korea's representative national museum. This article is structured in three sections. The first examines the shifting paradigm of museum displays. The second gives an overview of The National Museum of Korea's application of the sensory and participatory display methods in their special exhibition. The final section concludes by reflecting on how the shifting paradigm of museum displays is a product of the Western world and its time and how such paradigms have been and are currently being applied in other parts of the world.

This paper aims to assess the mechanisms of the Open-Air museum heritage interpretation approach in an attempt to establish a museology definition for the Open-Air museum concept, which can help us to deconstruct the components that make the model distinct and sustainable. This will be achieved by identifying the underlying principles of the Open-Air museum approach, as well as assessing the particular resources associated with the approach. The objective is to establish what a generally applicable Open-Air museum approach would look like and assess how the fundamentals of this approach can impact on sustainable economic development in Open-Air museums as well as other heritage settings. The study has performed an exhaustive literature review on Open-Air museums, and the review findings are corroborated with data from a 2018 survey on Danish and English Open-Air museums and in-depth interviews with management staff from two leading Open-Air museums in both countries. The study demonstrates that Open-Air museums rely heavily on intangible heritage resources to build their mediation approach and that their museology approach has been successful to the extent of developing a successful pedagogical tool that is furthermore a sustainable cultural "product".

A common forgery technique is to use molds to create a suite of objects. This article introduces a new technique to identify objects made with the same mold through the comparison of 3D models created using structured light scanning (SLS). SLS data, when analyzed with CloudCompare or other point cloud processing software, provides quantitative data on the variation between models that can be visualized in scalar fields. Inexpensive, adaptable, and non-destructive, the technique produces a digital signature for a mold that can be used to identify matching examples within a collection and be circulated between institutions. We demonstrate this technique on three forgeries of Zapotec urns from Oaxaca, Mexico, in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum that were created in the early twentieth century AD.

It is imperative that heritage institutions deal with the legacies of colonialism within their collections, the way this material is retained, preserved, displayed and interpreted, and the impact that this will have on local and global audiences. Failing to do so risks such organisations being perceived as the beneficiaries of colonial violence, and acts as a barrier to the recruitment, empowerment and retention of minority ethnic and indigenous staff. Kaitiakitanga, drawn from the Māori view of the natural world and its stewardship, provides a sustainable and holistic means by which such issues can be understood and addressed. This paper explores the way in which the author has used his own heritage and experience to apply this philosophy to practical problems encountered in the heritage sector, both those arising from colonial legacies in institutions and collections, and those of a more general nature. By doing so, it is demonstrated that such an approach can be positively applied to practice across a range of activities, alongside existing procedures, to break down historic barriers and entrenched views, facilitating genuine and far-reaching change within the heritage sector.

Since the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003, and the increased prevalence of decolonising objectives in museums, curators have been faced with the challenge of how to exhibit intangible cultural heritage (ICH). Existing literature on ICH in museums is sparse and that which relates to exhibition technologies, like film, often focuses on audience effect rather than on content and context of the media or motivations/intentions of curators in their use. This research explores how curators utilise film to exhibit ICH in museums through the case study of Lisa Reihana’s <em>in Pursuit of Venus [infected]</em> (<em>iPOVi</em>). By tracking the creation and exhibition of <em>iPOVi</em>, especially through interviewing various curators of the artwork, it is clear that curators privilege film’s ability to represent complex aspects of culture, like ICH, and utilise the medium to engage with the decolonising objectives of museums. It is ultimately how ICH characterises every facet of <em>iPOVi</em> (the medium, content, and filmmaking and exhibition contexts) that allows it to bridge gaps in discourse surrounding material culture and ICH and exposes the potential for filmmaking to become a heritage process.

This paper was prepared as part of the special collection on COVID-19 and the museum. The authors discuss the risks and uncertainties that the pandemic has introduced into the master planning process for cultural sites and resources. The paper concludes with reflections on how the heritage and cultural sector can best cope with these new realities.

Facing multiple unprecedented calamities throughout 2020—a global pandemic, economic upheaval, social turmoil, and climate crisis—museums shuttered, decimated their staff, and gutted their organizational structures. Now, they seem to struggle to maintain outward relevance in these bleak and uncertain times. What if, instead of being reactive, museums are proactive; instead of being defensive, they model social change? What if this change comes first from within? What if they rebuild differently, not guided by an insidious corporate model but one that places access, diversity, community, care, and people at its center? What if overhauling the internal staff structure—the static, hierarchical power dynamic, departmental silos, and over-bureaucratization of larger institutions—results in a museum that reflects twenty-first-century ideals of democracy? Let’s envision a different museum staff structure inspired by feminist theory, social entrepreneurship, and grassroots organizations.

The British Library’s conservation department faced a significant range of challenges arising from the COVID-19 situation and the limited time available to respond to them. By drawing on areas in which the department already had particular strengths, such as risk management, salvage planning and training, we were able to address these issues and support the operational requirements not only of our own area but also of the wider Library, in dealing with both immediate concerns and longer-term issues relating to the resumption of normal activities. This has encouraged us to look at underlying assumptions about our working practices, enabling us to revise our approaches in ways which not only respond to the current situation but also have far-reaching benefits.

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is having a severe impact on museums and the cultural sector. New social distancing rules, one-way navigation systems, and hand sanitising regulations are affecting the embodied practice of visitors inside the museum. These changes potentially pose a threat to the experience of disabled people, in particular blind and partially sighted visitors, as they create new barriers to access the environment and the collection. On the other hand, the development of accessible digital content and access to online collections offered a positive experience during the lockdown periods, as disabled people could socialise and participate in cultural activities from home. Museums are now called upon to identify the long-term positive and negative effects of the pandemic on the physical and digital museum experience of disabled visitors. Museum professionals need to work around the clock to ensure that new embodied and digital practices become long-term opportunities to enhance accessibility and inclusion, rather than another insurmountable barrier for disabled people.